chicago

I got into Chicago early early early yesterday morning, and have managed to both stay on top of my work and spend some good bridesmaid time with my friend. A bunch of the Zurich crew is flying in for the wedding, so it's going to be a fun weekend.

matriculation

The student I interviewed who got into Harvard decided to go to Harvard! I think she was leaning towards Princeton, and she actually came over to my house on Sunday and we chatted for a couple of hours. I hope she loves it.

90

Number of minutes of massage it takes to turn me into a puddle of blissful jelly on a warm, sunny day, a few hours before heading out to Chicago for two of my best friends' wedding.

easter

I rarely go to brick and mortar stores anymore, so it didn't occur to me that the mall would be closed for Easter. At least they have nice flowers, though.

so far so good

Fell asleep without sleeping pills, slept nine hours, lay in bed for an hour, got up to eat a brownie, got back in bed and read for an hour, took an hour nap, got up to get another brownie, got back into bed to read... So far, the weekend is going very well.

tough

I dropped my phone at work today, and it tumbled and bounced end over end down half a flight of wooden stairs. In the olden days, that would have resulted in the phone disintegrating into about fifteen pieces, or at least sustaining severe and disfiguring damage. This one is apparently quite tough, because it came out with a couple of tiny scuff marks. Whew.

miracle worker

The heating pad that my dog and I both love so much ended up being a miracle cure for Boyfriend's stomachache. He had never heard of using heating pads for stomachaches before, so I felt like a miracle worker, healing the sick with my magical heating pad.

s = p - e

"S = P - E.

In this formulation, 'S' stands for satisfaction, 'P' for perception and 'E' for expectation."

- David H. Maister, "The Psychology of Waiting Lines"

cont'd

Other things that my college roommate and I got up to while she was here:

• Watched Clue
• Went out for tapas (including bacon-wrapped dates)
• Ate a lot of the cheese we bought in the city
• Hung out at my office for a day, where she read and tried out the massage chair while I tried to get work done

She also decided that my kitchen was lacking in a few things, so Boyfriend and I now have a towel rack, a dish rack, a fruit bowl, and (this one is Boyfriend's favorite) a rack to hold all of our cutting boards.

She also pointed out that we have what appears to be a dogwood tree in full bloom in our backyard, which I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I hadn't even noticed, since I never go into the backyard.

roommate

So far, since my college roommate arrived after work on Friday, we've:

• eaten Boyfriend's homemade pizza
• watched The Cutting Edge
• listened and sung along to our old recordings of the Brahms Requiem and Beethoven's 9th (yes, it was nerdy, but fun)
• gone to the library
• gotten pedicures
• bought five kinds of cheese at the best cheese shop in the city, where the cheese girl complimented my pronunciation of Swiss cheese names
• eaten crabs at Crustacean
• had ice cream at Humphry Slocombe (I had Honey Thyme, and Boyfriend had Secret Breakfast, which is bourbon and cornflakes)
• met up for drinks at a bar full of people trying much too hard to be hip
• gone to the grocery store, Target, and the hardware store
• made and eaten fondue with college friends
• laughed at old pictures from fifteen years ago

zap

Kind of a grumpy morning, in part because the first thing I did was go to the allergist to get my shoulder stabbed with a shot of cats and dust, and then to the lab to get my elbow stabbed to draw a vial of blood for normal lab work. Stabby morning = grumpy morning.

To counteract, I hit up my list of go-to causes and decided to send some love to my local library. Then I loaded up some mindless, goofy music onto my playlist (instead of the requiem I've been listening to on repeat for the past week). Good mood will begin... NOW.

raw

Last night's dinner featured the freshest sashimi I've had in a long time. The toro (as expected) was delicious, but the hamachi, kanpachi, and especially the shima aji were exquisite. Yum.

hot date

Boyfriend and I are going out to dinner tonight -- we've been meaning to go here for a long time.

mint

Surprising discovery of the day, in a cafe at work for dinner:

Soft Curd Scrambled Eggs with Havarti Cheese,
and Asparagus Served with Sour Dough Crostini and Chives


There was also chopped fresh mint in there, and although it may sound weird (eggs with mint for dinner?), it provided further evidence in favor of the hypothesis that fresh mint goes with anything. It was so delicious.

now playing

In anticipation of my college roommate's imminent visit (she gets in on Friday), I finally got around to digging out the cassette tape recording of when we sang the Brahms Requiem in Lincoln Center, ran a line out to an MP3 player to encode it as an MP3, and uploaded it to my computer. I wish I had done this years ago, because it is so amazing to listen to it and let the memories come flooding back.

third time

Third time's the charm. I made my third batch of quinoa tonight, and I think I've finally tweaked the proportions and timing to get the perfect texture in my rice cooker.

in the city

It was a weekend of fun in the city -- Boyfriend and I went up yesterday evening for a birthday dinner with my sister, and the restaurant was surprisingly good. My favorite dish of the night was mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches -- they somehow managed to make the ice cream taste exactly like fresh mint, rather than mint flavoring. Yum. It's always good to see my sister, and it's good to hang out without the kids sometimes (I love my nieces and nephew, but a non-kids night now and then feels like old times).

I also gave my nephew his 8th birthday present, a microscope, and I wasn't sure if he was going to like it (I loved my microscope when I was little, but I wasn't sure if he would be quite as much of a dork). I was gratified by his response, which was honest in a way that only children are honest, "Wow, I definitely won't have to return this present!"

We stayed over for the night, and then met up with two of my good college friends for lunch. They got married six months ago, after dating for seven years, and after being best friends for eight years before that, and now they're living happily ever after. It was good to see them, and they even stopped by the house afterwards to see Fiver, who seemed to still remember them from our New York days, when these two friends (and a couple of others) used to come over every Wednesday evening to order dinner and play cards.

wrong

I love when I try to guess how long something will take to finish, and then it turns out to be far easier and faster than anticipated. (Second best is when I guess correctly.)

sleep

Monday night, bad sleep led to sleeping in led to a cranky, unproductive day. Last night, I slept much better, so I'm hoping this means good things. Dog in lap, "concentrate" playlist cued up, so it had better be a productive day.

rental

One of the nice things about renting a house is that it also includes a yard, which in turn includes this tree:

hair

I finally got around to getting a haircut (six months after the last one), and I really ought to get it cut more often, since I can't be bothered to spend time styling and keeping it in shape between cuts. The stylist had some fun ideas for next time, after the two upcoming weddings (I don't want to do something weird and have it be remembered forever in two sets of wedding pictures).

chromercise

It's April Fool's Day, and so one of my product teams made a silly video (there were some other jokes in other products, as well). Turns out that they actually made some of the finger warmers, and my business guy (the same one who helped me get a netbook to play with) saved some for me. They actually fit Fiver, so here he is modeling two of the Chrome finger warmers.